I have an inquiry about the Spanish infinitive for quere, which means, "to want". Does our "inquiry" share the Latin root? What is that root? My Latin dictionary reveals "quercus", which is oak and then querela, which means "complaint". Is the latter Latin root the same for inquiry, query and querulous?

The Sp infinitive is querer, as virtually all end in r. It's a bit irregular and declines as quiero, quieres, quiere, but in the plural it reverts to queremos etc. The word means more than want, and can instead mean to like or even to love. I've noted that often a senorita will tell her caballero "te quiero" rather than "te amo." That may be regional. The Latin infinitive, I think, would be querere, but I haven't checked.

The Latin roots of enquire are "in" meaning, in this case, into, and "quaerere" meaning to ask or to seek. The Spanish word "querer" probably comes from the same Latin root, although I am just observing on this one. I can believe the Latin word "querela" comes from the same root. Shipley suggests a PIE root kuere meaning to ask or to seek. As Slava says, querulous has a different root altogether. Perry's observation that "te quiero" is often used rather than "te amo" to mean, "I love you", is good in TexMex. I don't know about the Latin for oak, but I do know the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree.

Consider quest, question, query, etc. But not equestrian. Note that the letter k could be substituted for q if we had a q-less alphabet.

Perry Lassiter wrote:The Sp infinitive is querer, as virtually all end in r. It's a bit irregular and declines as quiero, quieres, quiere, but in the plural it reverts to queremos etc. The word means more than want, and can instead mean to like or even to love. I've noted that often a senorita will tell her caballero "te quiero" rather than "te amo." That may be regional. The Latin infinitive, I think, would be querere, but I haven't checked.